Sultan Knish: Anger Privilege

If you want to know who has privilege in a society and who doesn’t, follow the anger.

There are people in this country who can safely express their anger. And those who can’t. If you’re
angry that Trump won, your anger is socially acceptable. If you were angry that Obama won, it wasn’t.

James Hodgkinson’s rage was socially acceptable. It continued to be socially acceptable until he crossed the line into murder. And he’s not alone. There’s Micah Xavier Johnson, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Dallas, and Gavin Long, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Baton Rouge. If you’re black and angry about the police, your anger is celebrated. If you’re white and angry about the Terror travel ban, the Paris Climate treaty, ObamaCare repeal or any leftist cause, you’re on the side of the angry angels.

There’s a Talmudic saying (which may turn out to be in Tractate Tevye) to the effect that you can tell a great deal about a person by his pocket (how and where he spends money), his cup (how he behaves when drunk), and his anger (what he considers worth getting angry over)*.

One form of privilege is having a full purse; the wherewithal to buy what you need and want. Now we have the ability to express your anger as another form of privilege. Perhaps there is a third privilege associated with getting drunk?

Pretense, they explained, will disappear in situations involving money matters, in moments of anger, or by the way a man takes his liquor. As R. Ilai tersely phrased it: “You can recognize a person’s real character by his wine cup (koso), his purse (kiso) and his anger (kaaso).”